La Luz Del Sol in Albuquerque, NM

La Luz del Sol is a gated residential subdivision on Albuquerque's west side, set between Coors Boulevard and the Rio Grande bosque near Montaño Road. It was platted around 1980 to designs by the architect Antoine Predock, and lots look east across the valley toward the Sandia Mountains. Residents share a pool and belong to a landowners association that collects monthly dues for the common areas. The Andalucia retail center stands at the Coors and Montaño corner, and the bosque trail system runs along the river below the neighborhood.

The older La Luz del Oeste shares the same hillside. Ovenwest Corporation commissioned Predock for it in 1967, and the result was a run of townhomes threaded through five acres of walkways, drives and plazas, with thirty acres of protected mesa kept behind them for walking paths. That project later joined the National Register of Historic Places.

Build-out here ran long. Las Ventanas, a builder known for finishing developments that stalled, closed the subdivision with Ventana de la Luz, a last run of lots on Wind Road laid out along one north-south street so each shares the same eastward view.